Contents

Overview

Card back of MECCG

In its basic form, it is a game for two to five players, each choosing one of the five wizards to represent themselves. A turn in the game consists of one player's wandering around Middle-earth with the help of famous characters of Middle-earth, trying to gather influence and power to aid in the battle against The Dark Lord, while another player tries to harass, and ultimately kill his characters with specific hazard cards. Then, for each player's turn, the roles change clockwise around the table (the player who was moving his characters then throws hazards at the player to his or her right). Any player may also win by acquiring and destroying The One Ring after a complicated set of events.

Later expansions have added the possibility to take the role of a Ringwraith of Sauron (MELE), a corrupted wizard playing by his own rules (MEWH), the malevolent Balrog (MEBA), or even Sauron himself. The game is somewhat distinguished from most other CCG's with the use of two six-sided dice for a random factor and also by the actual map of Middle-earth, including regions your companies travel through, and site cards they visit.

MECCG won two Origins Awards: Best Card Game of 1995 for MECCG: The Wizards and Best Graphic Presentation of a Card Game or Expansion of 1996 for MECCG: The Dragons. The game's production ended in 1999, when ICE lost the license that allowed them to use the content of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit (this license was later bought by Decipher, who used it to bring out another CCG, the The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game). MECCG still has a relatively loyal and active fanbase of players.

1997: The White Hand (MEWH): Further complicates the game by adding a third faction, the corrupted Fallen-Wizard, whose player can use both hero and minion resources and characters, although with restrictions.

1998: The Balrog (MEBA) : Adds a new sub-faction to the minions, Balrog, who mainly depends on the brute strength of his Orcs and Trolls. It is argued by the player base that since the production of MECCG ended after MEBA, the set remains a bit overpowered because it didn't get a "balancing set" published afterwards.

Two more expansion sets were designed, but never reached publication: The Dwarf-lords and The Elf-lords. In addition, a complete revision of the MECCG was planned to be released in 1999, which was to be named Lord of the Rings Expandable Card Game (LORE CG).[1]